


at the bottom

by extraordinarywizard



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depressed John Egbert, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26954338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extraordinarywizard/pseuds/extraordinarywizard
Summary: A young man sinks on his couch in his living room. It was 23 years ago he was given life, and ten years ago he was given a name, and he hopes that today will be the last one he feels this way. The young man is you, John Egbert.
Kudos: 12





	at the bottom

**Author's Note:**

> [gestures vaguely at the homestuck epilogues] i don’t know man. i've had a bad couple of days and needed to vent

A young man sinks on his couch in his living room. It was 23 years ago he was given life, and ten years ago he was given a name, and he hopes that today will be the last one he feels this way. The young man is you.

The crack and fizz of pressurized gas escaping the can, the click of the opener popping it open. The sensation of cold alcohol down your throat. The mix of relief of numbing your emotions in the short term, and of knowing you’re making it worse in the long term by consuming a depressant. Paired with the hours and hours on loop you’ve spent doing nothing and being a useless piece of shit, this is what you do.

You haven’t left your house in what feels like… You pause to consider. You don’t remember when. You don’t remember when you last someone who wasn’t you own miserable face in the reflection of the bathroom mirror. You haven’t left the house. You are so pathetic.

You are so fucking lonely. You know that, but don’t do anything about it. You ignore calls. You ignore, so you don’t have to confront the lack. Everyone in your life is so busy with their own lives, they don’t have time for you. They don’t have time for a John Egbert in their schedule this week, please call to reschedule. You won’t. You keep your phone on silent, you don’t look at it.

Most days, or perhaps now it’s every day – you can’t tell anymore, it’s all the same – you question what is wrong with you. You feel the earth, Earth C, spin around its axis, and it brings everyone, human, troll, salamander and all, with it on its round. But you, you remain. Instead of taking you with and along the ride, it spins _around_ you. Like a magnet, avoiding you, mocking you for trying. You’re not allowed on this exclusive ride. You’re unsure of what you missed to not be allowed access to this secret life of adulthood everyone else seems to have figured out. It eats you up inside. How did everyone else figure it out, and you didn’t?

The flavor flushing down along your tongue and throat is making you want to vomit, it’s becoming too much, but you don’t vomit, and you don’t stop. The gross feeling settles in your stomach, along with the negativity you’ve bundled together for the night to be ignored by you, and they morph together into an emotional black hole. Is it even night? The thick curtains have been drawn for who knows how long. You’re too afraid to check, too afraid to confront what shell of a person you’ve become, pretending to be alive. You don’t want to see what lives others are living, without you, outside your windows. You’re comfortably uncomfortable pretending the walls of your home is all there is to the world.

You pour whatever is left of the bottle into a glass, in a poor attempt to feel more in control, more poised and okay, not like a fucked up lost cause who’s drinking straight from the wine bottle. You put the glass to your lips. Your eyes trace the edges, the alcohol swirling as you turn it in your hand. What are you looking for at the bottom of the red wine glass?

Your will to live, you think morbidly as the red wine briefly looks like blood to you in your hands. You look for answers, how to somehow turn your life around, and find nothing. Your mind is swimming, numbed, your thoughts and feelings trapped behind bottles worth of alcohol and other garbage you’ve had throughout the days. You don’t know if you even want things to change at this point. The skin on your body faintly itches, aches for something, a sharp sensation, but you’d rather not think about it now. Or maybe you should indulge in it for once. Why fucking not.

You wonder if its possible to drown yourself by drinking. Maybe that’s what you’ve been doing this whole time, slowly, slowly but surely drowning everything that is the essence of the young man who is known as John Egbert. Have you ceased to exist to others now? To yourself?

You’re supposed to be one of the most important people on this planet as one of its gods, yet you feel so unbearably insignificant it physically hurts.

You used to think of yourself as a prankster, but the real joke all along was you. It is time for the joke to end, it’s been running along for too long now, you think, and it’s far past its time to still be funny. Everyone just wants the joke to end, they’re waiting for the curtain call. Stop beating the dead horse. That’s why they no longer invite you to things or even text you. They no longer want you around.

Nobody has checked up on you in months. Some people may even think you’re dead right now. If that’s what they already think, why not give that to them?


End file.
